uty, on which grazed innumerable sheep,
their white fleeces spotting the vivid green of rolling meadows. By
degrees the idea of cultivation subsided into that of merely pastoral
care. This slowly became merged in a sense of retirement--this again in
a consciousness of solitude. As the evening approached, the channel grew
more narrow, the banks more and more precipitous; and these latter
were clothed in rich, more profuse, and more sombre foliage. The water
increased in transparency. The stream took a thousand turns, so that at
no moment could its gleaming surface be seen for a greater distance
than a furlong. At every instant the vessel seemed imprisoned within an
enchanted circle, having insuperable and impenetrable walls of foliage,
a roof of ultramarine satin, and no floor--the keel balancing itself
with admirable nicety on that of a phantom bark which, by some accident
having been turned upside down, floated in constant company with the
substantial one, for the purpose of sustaining it. The channel now
became a gorge--although the term is somewhat inapplicable, and I employ
it merely because the language has no word which better represents
the most striking--not the most distinctive-feature of the scene. The
character of gorge was maintained only in the height and parallelism of
the shores; it was lost altogether in their other traits. The walls of
the ravine (through which the clear water still tranquilly flowed) arose
to an elevation of a hundred and occasionally of a hundred and fifty
feet, and inclined so much toward each other as, in a great measure, to
shut out the light of day; while the long plume-like moss which depended
densely from the intertwining shrubberies overhead, gave the whole
chasm an air of funereal gloom. The windings became more frequent and
intricate, and seemed often as if returning in upon themselves, so
that the voyager had long lost all idea of direction. He was, moreover,
enwrapt in an exquisite sense of the strange. The thought of nature
still remained, but her character seemed to have undergone modification,
there was a weird symmetry, a thrilling uniformity, a wizard propriety
in these her works. Not a dead branch--not a withered leaf--not a stray
pebble--not a patch of the brown earth was anywhere visible. The crystal
water welled up against the clean granite, or the unblemished moss, with
a sharpness of outline that delighted while it bewildered the eye.

Having threaded the mazes of